Prevalence of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) among skin infection cases at a hospital in Chitwan, Nepal.

This study was carried out to see the methicillin resistance of Staphylococcus aureus isolated from patients with skin and soft tissue infection. In this study, a total of 600 S. aureus isolates isolated from 1,334 specimens from skin and soft tissue infection were included. For the screening of methicillin resistant of S. aureus (MRSA), specimens were inoculated on lipovitellin mannitol salt agar (LMSA) and MRSA were screened by testing resistance to oxacillin in AST plate following the standard bacteriological technique. The overall prevalence of MRSA was 68.0% (408/600). MRSA infection was higher among patients above 30 years of age. Tibeto-Burmans had high MRSA infection rate (72.5%) than Indo-Aryans (56.8%) and the rate was significantly higher among males (75.0%) than females (63.4%) (p<0.05). MRSA isolation rate was higher from wound (76.9%), followed by purulent exudates (67.7%) and abscesses (64.1%). The high prevalence of MRSA found in this study might be due to hospital based specimen.